What History Wants
by PenPatronus
Summary: McCoy's reaction to the "death" of Jim Kirk during Star Trek: Generations.


**Summary**: This is an alternate/ continued timeline from the first act of _Star Trek: Generations_. McCoy's reaction to the "death" of Jim Kirk. Guest appearances by Kirk, Spock, Chekhov and Scotty.  
**Disclaimer**: It all belongs to Gene Roddenberry and company (including my left foot and, you know, my soul).  
**Author's Notes**: This story was originally published under my previous pen name for Star Trek stories, on September 5th, 2005. I decided to close that account and transfer all of my stories under one name. No changes have been made to the story itself. A much better concept of this is written in J.M. Dillard's novelization of "Star Trek: Generations." If you're not a fan of TNG, at least read the first couple of chapters, as its mostly about the original series characters. It's priceless

Please review, even if you're reading this 5 years after it's published!!!

**What History Wants**

_"I've noticed that about your people, Doctor. You find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million." -Spock_

"My God…was anyone in there?" Pavel Chekhov gasped.

"Aye."

Scotty stared out the gaping hole in _Enterprise_-B and in a rare moment of poetry concluded that his heart felt like that crack (without the force fields). Charred and scratched and hollow and _empty_. He looked at Chekhov who was fighting the urge to tap his comm badge and ask for Admiral James T. Kirk. The two old friends stood together and knew a part of their lives had just ended with Kirk's, yet all Scotty could coherently think was _McCoy is going to kill me_…

-------

Dr. Leonard H. McCoy hated being a patient, especially to doctors in their late 20s who hadn't even worked with non-red blood. _Lucky bastards,_ he thought. McCoy stared at the Starbase sickbay's ceiling and wondered if Jim would come visit him after the ceremony of the _Enterprise_-B. He was supposed to be up there with Kirk, Chekhov and Scotty right now but he'd come down with a case of Terran Leukemia for the third time that year. The treatment was simple and he'd be cured in another day or so but for now Bones McCoy was grateful he didn't have to pretend to enjoy a stupid trip around the block of the solar system. Poor Jim didn't want to be up there either and when he'd stopped by sickbay on the way to the transport, he'd practically begged Bones to infect him as well.

"Oh I couldn't do that to Scotty and Chekhov," he'd grinned at an agitated Kirk. "Besides, Admiral, history wants you there."

"You know I don't like all this attention, Bones."

"But you _do_ deserve it, Jim. And your humbleness is so great that it cancels itself."

Kirk frowned, "You sound like Spock."

"Now there's no need to insult me just because you're jealous that I'm sick!"

But Kirk hadn't heard him. His eyes had clouded over. Bones had seen that expression on his friend's face dozens of times before: sentimental eyes, eyebrows in a frown, a slight smile in the corner of his mouth. He was thinking about Spock. He missed him, extremely.

"Jim—Jim?"

"Huh?" Kirk's eyes snapped back to Bones.

"When you get back, and I get better, we'll go visit him on Romulus."

Kirk opened his mouth to deny what he'd been thinking but promptly closed it again. He chuckled at his best friend and put his hand on McCoy's shoulder. "In a week? You promise?" McCoy nodded, a good-hearted Georgia grin on his face. Kirk looked visibly rejuvenated. "I'll see you soon, Bones."

McCoy watched him leave. Something felt funny in his stomach.

And now, a few hours later, just as Bones had been drifting off to sleep within the quiet Starbase, the empty space dock hovering just outside the window, he was rudely interrupted by a red alert klaxon.

_I've always hated that damn noise…_

Suddenly the room was full of those late-20s doctors. Tricorders and hyposprays and medicines were being thrown into bags in a blur and McCoy dizzily sat up and, like the cranky old man Jim always said he was, bellowed "What the _hell_ is going on here?"

"Sorry, Admiral!" The chief medical officer of the Starbase's staff was Charlise Bashir. She was too busy running around sickbay to even look at him as she talked. "You might want to return to your temporary quarters, sir; we're going to need that bed you're in."

McCoy gingerly swung his legs over the side of the biobed, "I asked you what happened, Commander."

Bashir huffed and went over to the Doctor as if she were about to toss him out the door herself but suddenly she stopped and pointed a finger past McCoy. Bones frowned at her and then whipped around to look out the window. He gasped. There, just below the base, limping slowly and awkwardly towards dry-dock was a very wounded _Enterprise_-B.

"The Enterprise had a little accident, Admiral," Bashir said. Bones got up and put his palm to the window as if touching the ship would heal it. "We've got casualties—"

"How many?"

"Admiral, sir, you really should go lie down—"

"I have friends on that ship, Commander, so at this point I'm promoting myself from patient back to doctor. How many—"

"Only one death reported, sir—at least forty in need of medical attention."

"_Only_ one?" McCoy snorted. He stared at the _Enterprise_ for a moment more, the funny feeling in his stomach made itself known again. McCoy frowned. _Whatever trouble they got into, I'm sure Jim got them out…_

Charlise was heading out the door. "We're transporting directly to their cargo hold, Admiral, this way!"

The small brigade of a dozen doctors jogged down the corridor to the rhythm of the red alert. McCoy reached into his own medical pack and injected several hyposprays full of medicine into himself, and finally he was able to see straight. He was not looking forward to Jim chastising him (or perhaps he was). He could hear his friend's voice now: _Bones, you're too sick to sit during the ride but _not_ too sick to run off and save 40 lives? _

_Shut up, Jim._

They passed officers as they ran: "They can't find his body anywhere!"

"…not the official crew, one of the guests—"

"What a disaster if any of _them_ died!"

Voices that Bones passed were urgent and confused. Journalists and communications officers discussing the tragedy immediately stopped talking when they spotted and recognized Leonard McCoy. Fear was in their faces. McCoy's stomach clenched and he frowned as he ran, _if any of my friends got hurt on this stupid media stunt…_

"Report from the _Enterprise_, Commander Bashir!" Some wiry wide-eyed Ensign ran up to Charlise as the doctors entered the transporter room. Bones let the first wave of young doctors go first, he certainly didn't want his atoms haphazardly catapulted across space but in a situation like this, but if Scotty or Chekhov were hurt…

…or Jim….

"What's the word?" Bashir demanded.

"Almost 50 total injured, ma'am. 12 critically and one—" the Ensign looked up at McCoy who'd taken his turn to be transported.

"Report, Ensign!" Bashir barked at him.

"One dead, Commander! We—We don't know who but it—it's someone from the _Enterprise_!"

Bashir put her hands on her hips, "I could've guessed _that_, Ensign, considering that's the name of the ship!"

"N—Not B, ma'am—" the Ensign looked up at McCoy as the beam began to take Bones away, "One of the officers from the _original_ _Enterprise_!"

When Bones materialized in the crowded cargo bay his cry of terror was immediately overwhelmed by dozens just as loud. The doctors that had been with him immediately bolted to the nearest wounded but McCoy stood frozen while faces flashed across his mind: Scotty…Chekhov…Jim…

_Oh God…_

The room was dark and crowded and McCoy weaved through it as if he were blind, a little kid reaching out for his family. His heart flipped at every red uniform he saw, and spiraled down when it wasn't one of his three friends. Shell-shocked, screaming, crying humanoid aliens clawed at him and Bones' ears started ringing from all the noise. And then he saw, in the opposite corner of the room, brown hair and a red uniform leaning over one of the wounded, a dark-skinned female. McCoy started pushing through the crowd and his heart raced on ahead of him. He dropped his medical bag and started running, yelling at people to move as he pushed through.

"Jim—_JIM_!"

"Doctor!" Scotty had entered the room and intercepted McCoy by the shoulders. The engineer's face was sweaty and his eyes strained, desperate.

Bones grinned with relief to see his friend alive before looking down at the other figure in red. "J—"

Pavel Chekhov slowly turned around and stood up, his face contorted and tears sparkling from the corners of his eyes. Bones grabbed Scotty's shirt, "You're all right—but then…where's…" His breath hitched.

And he only had to look into his friends' eyes to know…

His dearest friend was gone. Bones' exhale was something between a moan, a sob and a scream. He teetered.

Chekhov stepped forward and took McCoy's arm, "Doctor, you should not be here, you are ill."

"I'll be dead soon because Spock is going to kill me…" McCoy grunted. His knees gave out and his head fell forward as the weakness and dizziness increased when his heart shattered inside his chest. Scotty and Chekhov lowered their friend to the floor, still holding onto him protectively. "Oh Jim…" Bones hiccupped as tears shimmed down from his eyes. "How…what happened?"

"He saved the ship, Doctor."

"Of course he did, damn fool."

"We were caught in an energy ribbon that was tearing us apart," Scotty continued. Bones closed his eyes. "He made a repair that broke us free but—but then the section he was in got hit…"

"Damn you, Jim," McCoy choked fondly. He felt tired, so weak and tired, as if the universe had been turned upside down…and his certainly had. His grip on Scotty and Chekhov relaxed and he slumped limply against them, all his energy, all his _being_ sapped dry.

"Doctor…Doctor?" came Chekhov's concerned voice from far away.

Bones allowed himself to be enveloped by an empty cold blackness…

"_I'll see you soon, Bones…_"

"Jim…"

-------

_One Week Later…_

Spock watched the federation shuttlecraft descend with an expressionless face. Not even a raised eyebrow. The figure that emerged from it looked, for the first time to Spock, truly aged, very frail. For a moment Spock watched for someone else to walk out the door, half-expected him to, as illogical as that was. But then again, legends never truly died, he certainly hadn't. James Kirk had risked everything and lost nearly everything to resurrect Spock and now, some part of Spock felt that Kirk didn't even need resurrected. Because he still sensed his friend in this plane of existence. He'd been surprised, when McCoy had contacted him, to find out that his friend was dead. He should've felt it somehow and he hadn't, and that disturbed him even more. And for a Vulcan to admit surprise…It was founded, very founded in logic, in Spock's personal logic, in his gasp heart's logic that told him his friend was gone, not dead…and the question was, was he reclaimable? Not something he could explain to Leonard McCoy, not something that could be comprehended by anyone but him. But what was still raw was loss and that could be shared between them.

Spock, his long robes trailing and hood nearly covering his face approached a haggard-looking McCoy. The two old friendly enemies looked at each other wordlessly for a moment before each simultaneously reached out for the other's hand and held it between them. What passed between them was something Jim Kirk himself wouldn't have expected.

They suddenly had in each other what was lost with Jim, and Spock and McCoy were bound together by the loss of that friend more than they'd been with him there.

"He lived long, Doctor." Spock squeezed Bones' hand when he saw tears. "And he prospered. And we shall prosper from the love of him."

**The End**


End file.
